Courtesy of @kingdemna
Fashion’s enfant terrible, Demna Gvasalia—who has captivated the fashion world with his uncanny ability to sell the most basic of garments for astronomical prices and develop a cult following including the likes of Kanye West and Celine Dion—announced on Monday his departure from Vetements. Gvasalia founded the label in 2014 with a group of fellow designers whose identities remain a mystery and for five years, Vetements (the French word for clothes) has been subverting the very definition of fashion by creating garments that are as simple as that: garments. The brand made its name by designing “poverty chic” clothing, peddling them to bourgeois class at extortionate prices putting them out of the reach of your average streetwear enthusiast. In short, lowbrow clothing for a highbrow audience. From their very first runway show in 2015, staged at Paris’s infamous gay club, Le Depot, an already dramatic departure from the glitz and glamour of fashion week, the whole thing felt like a social experiment or a bizarre inside joke between former Soviet compatriots who were mocking the capitalist behemoth that is the Western fashion world (and we’re still not entirely sure that it wasn’t that…). Since then, they’ve been inconveniencing just about every fashion world heavyweight by scheduling their shows well off the traditional fashion calendar and luring them into lurid venues such as a McDonald’s, a Chinese restaurant, or the underpass of a Parisian motorway.
While some might shudder at the comparison, in certain ways Gvasalia was filling a void left by other iconoclastic fashion rebels such as Martin Margiela, whose eponymous label Gvasalia worked for after its founder’s departure. Designers were creating extravagant, luxury pieces that would put on a spectacle for the runway but wouldn’t make their way into the everyday person’s closet. In contrast, Vetements produced ready-to-wear streetwear pieces that would cost you two months rent in New York. And because of the cliché that luxury is tied to price, oversized basic hoodies and branded tees had tags in the high hundreds or even thousands.
Courtesy of Vetements SS18.
Despite the absurdity of the brand and the criticism it’s received, Georgian-born Gvasalia and Vetements, along with designers like Russian-born Gosha Rubchinskiy, are responsible for having catapulted the post-Soviet aesthetic that has been reverberating through the fashion industry for years now into the mainstream. Inspired by a time of cultural, economic and social upheaval, several of Vetements collections have addressed politics of the Eastern Bloc, issues of the EU and Brexit, and the personal impact of the Georgian civil war on Gvsalia.
But while the designer insists that fashion is about the clothes, the reality of today is that the success of fashion depends on hype. When Highsnobiety, perhaps prematurely, announced that Vetements was dead in 2018, citing diminishing sales numbers, the brand quickly and forcefully responded, calling it “wannabe journalism based on lies and gossip.” As soon as the hype-ability of the brand is threatened, it begins to fall apart. And although they managed to maintain the momentum for another few seasons afterwards, it is getting harder and harder to justify the extraordinary prices when there are so many younger, more affordable and just as hype-worthy (and perhaps inspired by Vetements) designers coming out of the woodwork with every season. What started out as authentically subversive irony that wasn’t taking itself too seriously has turned into social-media geared mockery, and most consumers aren’t stupid (there has also been much talk of Gvasalia’s recent prioritisation of Balenciaga, which he also heads up, perhaps explaining his sudden departure). And while Gvasalia’s departure may actually be the nail in Vetements’ coffin, there’s no denying they had their fair share of iconic and ridiculous moments.
DHL T-Shirt 245€
For most of us, and especially us Berliners, DHL, the logistics and delivery company, represents the capitalistic pinnacle of ineptitude. Leave it to Vetements to take the brand’s garish colours and ubiquitous logo and turn it into the “it” t-shirt of 2016. Hardly a corner of Instagram was left untouched by the Vetements x DHL collaboration that was introduced on their SS16 runway, when Rubchinskiy opened the show in the shirt and unveiled the bizarre collaboration. The collection sold out instantly and was even seen on DHL’s CEO. Originally retailing for 245€, it was almost an exact copy of DHL’s very own t-shirt worn by actual couriers which could be bought on their website for 6€—the only difference is a stripe around the back. They may be humouring millennials with their ironic collaborations with instantly recognisable brands, but at the end of the day it’s the millennials who can’t afford the hefty price tags who end up as the butt of the joke. And as if the success of the t-shirt wasn’t enough, they continued the collaboration in future seasons with a range of jackets, hats, and other pieces to further clog up your Insta feed with photos of people posing in front of DHL trucks.
Grinder and Snuff Spoon Necklace, 700€ and 295€
Vetements has never pretended to be SFW, what with their obscene t-shirts and butt-revealing jeans, but this one may have been taking it too far. While some defended it as a commentary on the drug problems in the fashion world, let’s just call it what it is—a glamorised, overpriced coke spoon à la Sarah Michelle Geller in Cruel Intentions. With the hefty price tag of 295€, it comes in the form of a twist off cylinder with a concealed spoon. The backlash was so aggressive that Vetements pulled the spoon from retailers and removed it from their Instagram.
Unveiled in its FW16 collection, Vetements also released a logo engraved weed grinder pendant that came in gold and silver, reinterpreting the meaning of “high” fashion. If your run-of-the-mill generic grinder from your local head shop just isn’t cutting it, this might be the one for you. It’ll set you back a cool 700€ though.
YOU F*CK’N ASSHOLE T-Shirt, 900€
Definitely not the sort of thing you’d wear to a family gathering, the brazen football shoulder padded t-shirt is anything but subtle with its message, making the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris an interesting choice of venue for its AW16 presentation. Seen on Rihanna and Instagram star Chiara Ferragni, the 900€ slogan t-shirts were yet another viral hit for Vetements. And while some might say that parading t-shirts like this and sweatshirts printed with “Sexual Fantasies” through a church is sacrilege, a streetwear obsessed millennial would probably tell you: “It’s called fashion, look it up.”
Manolo Blahnik x Vetements Waist High Boots, 4,000€
If thigh high boots aren’t dramatic enough for you, Vetements and Manolo Blahnik came out with the perfect answer; satin waist high boots that came in a multitude of colours. Are they just crotchless pants at this point? How do you get them over a pair of jeans? There are so many questions. Debuting in their AW16 collection along with a selection of other shoes in collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, they quickly developed a celebrity fanbase, with Rihanna boasting a pair on Instagram, and Kendall posting a viral topless mirror selfie in hers. Retailing at just over 4,000€, we’re not so sure we’d pay such a hefty price tag for shoes that would make it so difficult to use the bathroom in.
“It’s my birthday and all I got was this overpriced Hoodie from Vetements.”, 894€
In case anyone thougt Gvasalia and Vetements hadn’t realised how insane their pricing was, they made this hoodie. The cheeky hoodie pretty much speaks for itself, and retailed at close to 894€ (990 USD). Self-awareness is everything, right? While we’d much rather get the cash instead of the hoodie for our birthdays, Rihanna wore one to celebrate her actual birthday, but we somehow doubt that’s all she got.
Juicy Couture x Vetements, 950€
What better way to make your SS17 Paris Couture Week debut than to collaborate with the brand that had “couture” on the lips (and derrieres) of every suburban hot girl, Juicy Couture. Beloved by Paris Hilton and coveted by adolescent girls everywhere, the brand that made the era defining velour tracksuit had significantly diminished in popularity since the early 2000s, having gone from being cool to just straight-up trashy. The collaboration included tracksuits priced at 950€, one-pieces, and sweatpants bearing the obligatory diamanté “Juicy” across the backside. Since Vetements put Juicy Couture back on the map, it’s made its official comeback, debuting its first ever runway show in the winter of 2018.